Les Rencontres d’Arles is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970. It has an international impact by showing material that has never been seen by the public before. In 2015, the festival welcomed 93,000 visitors. The specially designed exhibitions, often organised in collaboration with French and foreign museums and institutions, take place in various historic sites. The Rencontres d’Arles has revealed many photographers, confirming its significance as a springboard for photography. The festival Rencontres d'Arles is held annually during July, August and September.

At the 2017 edition of the Recontres AC/E supported the exhibition 'Blank Paper: Histoires du présent immédiat' (Stories of the immediate present), which showed the most recent works of the Spanish group Blank Paper and also reflected on how exchange and the collaborative creative process of this large group have generated a fertile field for photographic creation in Spain.

At the beginning of the 2000s, a group of photographers established a group in Madrid in order to carry out their work and create a common intellectual space. This was Blank Paper. Since then, their photography has continued to develop following a practice that includes collaboration and exchange among its principal characteristics. Far from official institutions and circles, these photographers have succeeded in building an independent production, exhibition and distribution network based on solidarity. This has been a risky but necessary venture, as the recent years have witnessed not only major social changes but also a serious economic crisis. The exhibition brought together the most recent works of the Blank Paper collective, along with works by other photographers in the same field, with whom they have forged a relationship of trust and rapport shaped by years of shared learning.